Lifestyle

Woman Sues Match.com After Date Stabs Her

A Las Vegas woman is suing Match.com for $10 million after she was brutally attacked by a man she met on the dating website.

Mary Kay Beckman claims the site misled her and failed to alert her to the dangers of online matchmaking, leading to an ambush attack in her garage. The assault left her with 10 stab wounds and multiple surgeries, for which she's seeking compensation.

Beckman joined the online service in August 2010 and met her "match," Wade Ridley, a month later. After several online conversations and 10 days of dating, she decided to end the relationship. Beckman claims Ridley sent threatening texts to her days after the break-up and in January 2011, hid in her garage with a knife, then stabbed and kicked her "several times in the head until she 'stopped making the gurgling noise.'" The force he used was so strong that it caused the knife to break, Beckman said in court documents.

In her official complaint, Beckman says that Match.com misrepresented the idea that the "site was safe, consistently lead[ing] to loving relationships, and was comprised of individuals seeking healthy relationships."

The website's terms of use explain that eligible members must warrant that he or she has never been convicted of a felony, and users aren't required to register as a sex offender with the government. It also highlights a section called "Your Interactions With Other Members," saying users are solely responsible for their interactions and Match.com does not currently conduct criminal background checks on its members.

It also provides safety tips to follow, including guidelines for meeting offline. In 2011, the website implemented a screening process for sexual offenders after a woman claimed she was raped by someone she met through the site.

Acknowledging Beckman's lawsuit, Match.com issued a statement to a Fox affiliate saying, "What happened to Mary Kay Beckman is horrible but this lawsuit is absurd. The many millions of people who have found love on Match.com and other online dating sites know how fulfilling it is. And while that doesn't make what happened in this case any less awful, this is about a sick, twisted individual with no prior criminal record, not an entire community of men and women looking to meet each other.”

Do you think a criminal screening process on dating sites can prevent similar incidents? Should online dating sites do more to protect users? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

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